


Mismatch Made in Heaven

by trashtrove (editoress)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 18:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6765634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editoress/pseuds/trashtrove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Krogans are not masters of romance, but Shepard doesn't seem to mind.  Even if Naklan towers over her and never smiles and responds mostly in grunts.  She knows what he means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sure

**Author's Note:**

> For Kimberly, a princess in all things, a long-time source of delight and wonder.

"Are you sure?"

That was the response, every time.  It didn’t even matter whether the person asking the question knew either of them, because everything to be known about them was obvious from the get-go.

Kimberly Shepard was a story all her own.  She was a warrior fierce, to be sure: an N7 agent with a proclivity for pistols, one of the galaxy’s unstoppable forces.  But her intense training had not left her with the bulk and muscle it gave most.  Instead, she was almost girlish—lean and willowy, with tended hair and near-professional makeup over fading scars.  Her armor was sensibly built but feminine in scheme.  Even as she gunned down corrupt forces and slavers, she was a little dainty.

Naklan could not have been less dainty had he tried.  He lacked the inevitable scars that came with age for krogans, but he also lacked the steady ease and dryly humorous wisdom.  Instead, he just frowned.  He frowned at enemies and jokes and especially at Shepard.  He was also large, even for a krogan.  He made Shepard look like a china doll.

And so every time it became clear that they were a couple, they got the question.

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Commander?"

Shepard just smiled at Joker.

"Not that I’m against interspecies stuff or anything," he continued.  "I’m not _that_ Cerberus.  But—geez, Shepard.  Are we talking about the same guy?  Size of a shuttle, always growling at people?  The guy has no sense of humor.  And that’s important, Commander.”  He winked, then pulled a face.  “Do we even know if he can smile?”

"He can smile," Shepard answered smugly, and turned away.

"He can—wait, Commander, _how do you know that_ —”

But she was already gone.

* * *

"Are you… sure, sir?"

Naklan grunted, irritated by the question.  He was the one with the money, wasn’t he?  “Yes.”

The shopkeeper eyed the stack of boxes he was carrying, then brightened.  “Oh!  Your lady friend must be another krogan.”

"No."  The shopkeeper’s uneasy expression returned.  Naklan rumbled.  This exchange was tiring.  "Just sell ‘em to me.  Now."

But she just had to try again.  “You know, sir, the accepted tradition is to buy your significant other _one_ box of—”

“ _How much_?” Naklan bellowed, slamming his hand on the counter.

"Eightyninecreditssir!"

Naklan left the store proudly balancing six large boxes of chocolate.  After all, one box was probably fine.  Six had to be _amazing_.

* * *

"Are you sure?" Naklan muttered sullenly.

Kimberly beamed at him.  “Yes.  This is how humans hold hands.”

She would be nice and not mention how she had found him: scowling mightily at a datapad with a life-size image of a human hand on it, shoving his hand against it at various angles in an attempt to figure out how they might fit together.  Now her thin fingers were laced around his thicker ones.  She didn’t take offense to his mood, either.  She knew him too well to think he was embarrassed about showing affection in public; he was embarrassed because he hadn’t known how to do it.

Case in point—they were starting to get stares.  “What are you looking at?” he growled at a passing salarian, who scuttled away.  Naklan raised their clasped hands and shook them at the retreating form.  “You never seen a couple hold hands before?”

Kimberly laughed.  “You’re so sweet.”  She leaned over and kissed Naklan on the corner of his mouth.

Naklan made a soft, deep noise and pulled his head back a few centimeters into his body.  It only made Kimberly smile wider.

A few moments later, he grunted to get her attention.  She turned toward him and was immediately met with a frontal plate bumping against her forehead.  She blinked, delighted.  By the time she started to consider what had happened, he had already started forward again.

"Naklan," she said, "was that a _kiss_?”

He grumbled a terse and near-incoherent explanation of krogan affection that amounted to a _yes_.  Kimberly was still beaming a few minutes later when they stopped at a vendor stall.

The vendor looked a little shocked to realize they were a couple.  “Oh! Oh, are you, uh, are you sure?” she asked.

“ _Yes_ ,” they both said at once.


	2. Bonding (Interlude)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grunt's too cute to leave out.

“Ha ha, and then his whole head just blew off.”

Naklan’s throaty rumble was his only response.  He wasn’t even looking at the other krogan.  Grunt, who was still laughing, didn’t seem put off in the least.  “Ah, can’t wait to try out the shotgun mods.”  His weight shifted, arms positioned as if he were cradling the gun already.  “You got any mods?”

“No.”

“Too bad.  Gives it more kick.  You _feel_ it when you shoot somebody.”

“Mm.”

“What’s this one?”  Grunt picked up an unadorned shotgun of purely krogan technology.

Naklan glanced over.  “For training.”

“Yeah?”  The younger krogan turned it over for a moment, then snorted suddenly.  “What—fake rounds?  You train with fakes?”

Naklan scowled at him.  “ _You_ wanna get shot by some kid who can barely hold a gun?”

“No,” Grunt admitted.

“So yeah, I train ‘em with fake rounds.”  Naklan turned back to cleaning his prize pistols.  Grunt hung around for a few more minutes, prodding at this and that, before heading back to the cargo room with his tank.  Shepard was already there.

“I was looking for you,” she said.  “Are you and Naklan getting along?”

Grunt gave her a proud half-smile.  “Yeah.  He likes me all right.”


	3. Company

“One more time,” Mordin said, a little impatiently.  “Small words.  Earth, human home world, is well suited to support life.  No need for so many redundant systems in humans.  No need for so many redundant systems in _any_ other species.”

“No need—”

“Still talking.”  Mordin was startlingly unimpressed with the temperamental krogan in his face.  “No redundancies, better developments in medical science.”

“What does that even mean?” Naklan barked.

Mordin patted his shoulder.  “She will be fine.”

Kimberly, propped up in a cot on the other side of the med bay, agreed mostly for Naklan’s sake.  “I’m all right, Naklan.  Mordin knows what he’s doing.”

“Of course,” Mordin retorted lightly, and left the two of them alone.

Naklan growled and stormed over to stand beside her cot.  He towered over her fretfully, shifting his weight this way and that before finally sitting in a chair with such force that it creaked.

“It wasn’t a serious surgery,” she offered.

He grunted noncommittally.

“I don’t feel too bad.”

“Hmm.”

Kimberly sighed and gently settled down further into the cot.  After some consideration, she reached out and took Naklan’s hand.  He blinked down at their hands, briefly distracted from his sour mood.

“Naklan,” she said gently as she could; she was very tired.  “I don’t need protection or vengeance or anything.”  She squeezed his hand.  “I just need company.  And maybe a little help.”

He frowned deeply, but Kimberly felt a bit lighter all the same—it was his normal frown, his everyday look of thoughtfulness.  He was silent for a time.  Then at last he said, “Oh.”

Kimberly smiled at the tone of slow comprehension.  “Mhmm.”

“I can do that.”

“I knew you could.”

When Mordin returned much later, he found both of them asleep.  Kimberly was stretched out comfortably on the cot, Naklan was propped against the wall, and their hands were still intertwined.


	4. Home

Naklan wanted to go home.

He never said as much.  In all their time seeing to ceremonies, audiences, and processions, he never so much as wavered, but stood just behind Kimmy with his usual stolid frown.  No one else would have noticed that anything was wrong.

But Kimberly knew, and not just because she too was tired of the ridiculous, endless parades that had come with saving the known galaxy.  In her opinion, being a savior should have earned her the right to never speak to anyone again, had she so wished.  But that wasn't what was bothering the krogan.  That wasn't why he fidgeted; it wasn't why his thoughts were so far away whenever he wasn't immediately occupied.

It wasn't why when she sat down beside him late one night and took his hand, he only grunted.

Personally, Kimmy didn't think he was so very difficult to read—and she had never seen him look so disconsolate.  So she didn't waste any time.  "I'm thinking our next stop will be Tuchanaka."

Naklan's head jerked up and he eyed her.  "What about the schedule?" he rumbled.

"The crew can do that if they have to," Kimmy decided.  "They're heroes, too."

Naklan mulled this over, shifting his hand so it better fit in hers.

"If you really want to go," she added.

"I wanna go."  His faceplate bumped gently against her temple.  "I wanna go."

That was how Kimmy and Naklan managed to sneak off in a long-range shuttle while the _Normandy_ continued its victory tour without them.  Joker had agreed, not without some ragging at the trouble Kimmy's absence would cause them, to drop them off within the Aralakh system, so they didn't have far to go.  In the hours they spent in transit, Naklan was livelier than he had been in weeks (relatively speaking).  When they caught sight of Tuchanka shining in the distance, his eyes lit up.

Kimmy was too busy bringing the shuttle in to smooth her skirts, but she still felt the urge.  It wasn't until they landed that she could make sure her dress and its many layers were firmly in place.

"Don't be nervous," Naklan grunted.

Kimmy huffed at being caught out at it but took his hand anyway.  They descended the boarding ramp together.  After what seemed like an eternity of welcoming parties, it was relieving to arrive somewhere and be left alone.  The docking bays were going about business as usual, by the sound of it.  The only person who took any notice of them took off at a jog as soon as she spotted him.  Beside her, Naklan grumbled incoherently.

"What is it?" she prompted.

He grumbled further without providing any clear answer.

Tuchanka's ground was rough, and though Kimberly fared relatively well for herself, Naklan still helped her down a few of the steeper slopes.  Focused as she was on keeping her tights as tidy as possible, she almost missed the growing noise of a crowd of krogans.

"Naklan!"

Naklan heaved a sigh—but Kimmy looked up in time to see that his usual frown was suspiciously halfhearted.

"I told you he was here!"

" _Naklan_!"

The krogans that rushed forward were short, bright-eyed, and mostly free of scars—kids, then, or at least young adults.  They certainly had the enthusiasm; even with only a dozen or so of them, they nearly shook the ground with their approach.  They pulled to a haphazard halt right in front of Naklan and Kimmy.

"You're back!"

"You'll never guess where I got this scar—"

"Naklan, I _killed_ the rite last year—"

Those who were close enough reached out to punch Naklan's armor or prod his arm to get his attention, while a couple of them bounced impatiently in the back.  Naklan grunted occasionally.  He reached and cuffed one of the young krogans (the one who had just been through the rite of passage) about the head, but the kid only shrank his head back in pleased embarrassment.

"Lemme show you how I can shoot now, Naklan!"

"Naklan, who's that—"

"You dirt-stupid idiot, that's Shepard.  Naklan, isn't that Shepard?"

At that question, they finally fell silent, if not still.  Naklan nodded once.  "Yeah, Commander Kimberly Shepard."  The young krogans started shouting again all at once, but Naklan cleared his throat in a particular way and they quieted again.  He finally turned to Kimmy, and though his face was carefully stoic, he was all but glowing.  "These're my students."

Kimmy had guessed that for herself.  Naklan had left behind his job as combat trainer to help her with her mission.  He had never regretted it that she knew of.  But the adoration coming off the krogan kids, the fact that he hadn't referred to them as _former_ students, how proud of them he was—well, she was glad they'd come here.

So of course the first thing she had to do was ruin her boyfriend's image.  "Naklan brags about you all the time," she informed his students.

They whooped brightly.  Naklan's head sunk back into his armor as they crowded around Kimmy and demanded stories.  She hadn't managed to tell a single one before one of them asked what all her dress was for.  And then, really, there was no hope of escaping even had she wanted to.

It was sundown before she and Naklan left to find a place to stay the night.  Naklan walked comfortably close, all his earlier unease gone.

"I think they like me," Kimmy mused.

He hummed lowly.

Kimmy smiled.  "I think I like them."

Naklan wordlessly leaned his forehead against hers.

He was home.


End file.
